John 6:13Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

This was also no small condemnation for Judas, who also carried a basket. That this was done for their instruction is clear from what Christ later said when He reminded them of this occasion: "Do you not understand how many baskets you took up?" (Mt 16:9).

For this reason the number of baskets with the remains of the loaves was equal to the number of the disciples. Later, when they had already been taught, the remains were not so many, but seven baskets.

I marvel not only at such a multiplication of the loaves, but also at the definite quantity of the remains amid their abundance. He produced neither more nor less, but precisely as much as He willed.

He foresaw how much would be used, which was the work of His ineffable power. Thus the fragments themselves confirmed the reality of the miracle.

They showed both that the event was not an apparition and that the fragments remained from the very loaves the people had eaten. As for the miracle with the fish, it was then performed from prepared fish.

After Christ's Resurrection, however, it was no longer from prepared matter. Why? So that we may know that even now He used prepared matter not from necessity or because He needed a basis, but to stop the mouths of heretics.

For the people expected to gain no important benefit. They immediately forgot the miracle, so foolish were they. The disciples, however, were to receive benefit, and not merely by chance.

From this event we learn not to grow fainthearted in the narrowness of poverty. We must not shrink from hospitality and almsgiving, but believe that even if we have one loaf, He who made such a remainder from five loaves will multiply it.

In an allegorical sense, when the Lord withdrew from Jerusalem, according to what was said in the prophets, "I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My inheritance" (Jer 12:7), He departed into Galilee of the Gentiles.

He received the Gentiles, and a great multitude followed Him. He goes up "onto the mountain," either onto the Cross, in order to draw all to Himself, or into heaven, into honor and glory befitting God.

For after His Ascension into heaven, we glorify Him as God and not as a mere man. Therefore it is said that He went up onto the mountain. By the mountain is signified a lofty thought concerning Him.

To us, who are subject to the five senses, He gives five intelligible loaves. To each sense He gives suitable bread, or teaching, as Paul also says: "In church I wish to speak five words" (1 Cor 14:19).

That means words serving for the correction of the five senses. Yet we cannot eat all these five words, and a remainder remains.

For none of us can contain the whole mystical teaching. What is incomprehensible and hard to digest for us, who are coarse, the apostles contain in their righteous souls as in certain baskets.

Baskets are made of palm branches, and "the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree" (Ps 91:13).

The finding of the fragments confirmed the certainty that there truly and undoubtedly had been an abundance of food. It was not a phantom of imagination deceiving the sight of those refreshed and those serving them.

But what is especially important, noteworthy, and very useful for us is this. Consider how, through this miracle, He makes us wholly ready for voluntary and eager hospitality.

Through the event itself He proclaims to us, as though in a loud voice, that God’s help will not forsake one who delights in sociable and loving conduct.

Such a person wishes to fulfill what is written: “Break your bread for the hungry” (Isa 58:7). For we find that at first even the disciples were seized by a certain sluggishness about this.

But because they were so disposed, the Savior gave them an abundant gathering of fragments. By this He also teaches us that, when we spend the little we have for the glory of God, we receive grace in return most abundantly.

This accords with what Christ said: “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given into your bosom” (Lk 6:38).

Therefore we must not be hesitant in showing love toward the brethren. Rather, we must have good confidence.

Let us drive far from ourselves the slowness and fearfulness that turn us away from hospitality. Let us be established in hope by faith that God can multiply even what is little.

Let us open our hearts to those in need, according to the ordinance of the Law: “You shall surely open your heart to your brother who is in need of you” (Deut 15:11).

Otherwise, when will you show yourself merciful, if you remain hard during this life? When will you fulfill the commandment, if you let the time for doing good pass in idleness?

Remember the words of the Psalmist: “For in death there is none who remembers You, and in Hades who will give thanks to You?” (Ps 6:6).

Indeed, what fruit can there be from the dead? Or how can anyone who has gone down into Hades still remember God by fulfilling the commandment?

“For God has shut him in,” as it is written (Job 3:23). Therefore the most wise Paul instructs us in one Epistle: “While we have time, let us do good” (Gal 6:10).

Let this be said by us for benefit from the history. But we take what was said in the spiritual sense, for so it was fitting and not otherwise.

We said that the five barley loaves indicate the Pentateuch of Moses, and that the two baked fish indicate the wise writings of the holy Apostles.

Therefore I think that, concerning the gathering of the fragments, we must likewise devise some mystical and spiritual contemplation corresponding to what has been said.

The Savior commands the people to recline. He Himself, having blessed the loaves and the fish, sets them forth, plainly through the service of the disciples.

When those who ate were miraculously filled, He commands that the fragments be gathered, and “twelve baskets” are filled. Probably each disciple had one, for they were also twelve.

What, then, should we conclude from this, if not this, and it is not false? Christ is the host of the feast for all who believe in Him.

He feeds those who come to Him with divine and heavenly teachings: those of the Law and the prophets, of the Gospel and the Apostles.

Yet He is not shown as doing this by Himself alone. The disciples distribute to us the grace from above, for they are not themselves “the ones speaking,” as it is said.

Rather, “the Spirit of the Father” is “speaking in them” (Mt 10:20). Still, their labor in this will not remain without reward for the holy Apostles.

Having set before us spiritual food and distributed the good things from the Savior, they will receive an exceedingly abundant recompense. They will find from God a grace that is wholly generous.

This, I think, and nothing else, is signified by each one gathering a full basket at Christ’s command after the labor and service expended upon those who ate.

And it is beyond doubt that everything given in them as a pattern must pass after them to the presidents of the holy churches.

What their eyes did for those people, faith accomplishes for us. Naturally, we perceive with the mind what we cannot see with the eyes. We are better than they, for it is said of us, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (Jn 20:29).

I would add that we have perhaps understood what that multitude did not understand. And we are truly satisfied, because we have been able to reach the kernel of the barley.

The Lord's miracle not only satisfied all the hungry, but also gave, beyond this, twelve baskets of remains. Among all craftsmen, the need of those in want is greater than their own power, because craftsmen cannot make as much as the needy desire.

But the work of Christ exceeded the needs.

Κοφινος, a basket, equals a quarter of a vedro by our measure. Twelve baskets make three vedros, or two chetveriks. Therefore the Russian translation should have put twelve baskets, or small wicker-baskets, not twelve boxes.

When Jews had to pass through pagan or Samaritan villages, they stocked up on bread and carried it in baskets. See Mt 16:7; Mt 8:14; Deut 26:2, 4.

They did this chiefly out of fear of being defiled by unclean food. Juvenal says, "Here for the Jews is a grove with a sacred spring and their beggar's basket" (Sat. 3.15).

Thus all the baskets of the twelve disciples were filled with the remains of the miraculous meal.

"Then the men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, 'This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.'" "The miraculous multiplication of the five loaves showed the almighty power of the divine Author of nature," says St Hilary.

The witnesses of the deed, the five thousand people, recognized a miracle in what had happened before their eyes. They said that the one who performed this miracle was none other than the expected messenger of God, the Messiah.

The people spoke this way about Jesus on other occasions also. See Mt 16:13; Mt 21:11; Lk 7:16.

The Neologists, Paulus and others, do not wish to recognize a miracle in this event. They say that the people were satisfied not only with the five loaves, but that they had their own food with them.

But this means speaking of a historical event otherwise than the eyewitnesses speak of it, and amusing oneself with fables. The eyewitnesses said to Jesus, "Send them away, for they have nothing to eat" (Mk 6:36; Lk 9:12).

The apostles look for food for the people and find only five loaves and two fish with one boy (Mk 6:38). The questioning of Philip was made precisely to guard such a great event from doubts.

Finally, the Evangelists say directly that all five thousand were satisfied by those five loaves offered to them. And all five thousand said the same in their judgment of the event.

"Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain alone."

The miracle so struck the people and so convinced them that Jesus was the Messiah that they wanted at once to proclaim Him king. If He was the Messiah, then, according to their mistaken belief, He was an earthly king, the restorer of the mighty kingdom of Israel's kings.

They wanted to use violence, if necessary. But the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not a worldly kingdom (Jn 18:36). He came to earth to fulfill the will of the heavenly Father, not to seek earthly glory for Himself.

Therefore He hid Himself from the people on a solitary mountain, where He had previously been with the disciples (v. 3). He withdrew in order to devote Himself to prayer in solitude (Mt 14:23; Mk 6:46).

The miracle on the lake and the discourse on the heavenly bread follow in Jn 6:16-71.

It is clear that here we do not touch upon the breaking of bread at the sacred supper when the Mystery of the Holy Eucharist was instituted.

Everywhere our Lord appears as the merciful Father among the people of all tribes and tongues, who are to become one flock under the headship of one Shepherd (Jn 10:16).

How the pieces of bread and dried fish multiplied in the hands of the distributing disciples, we likewise cannot explain or understand. Nor can we explain why a tree or plant grows from a small seed, hundreds of thousands of times greater than the seed enclosing it.

This is an act of creation. It should be noted that in Cana of Galilee (Jn 2:7-9) and here, God was pleased to extend the act of His creative power to definite objects produced by men from God's natural gifts.

These objects were wine and bread, which were to represent in the future the Blood and Body of our Lord Jesus. Their multiplication signified infinite mercy, calling all to salvation and feeding with grace countless generations, never growing poor.

For "God gives the Spirit without measure" (Jn 3:34). The Lord commands them to gather "the excess fragments, that nothing may be lost."

God's gift to the people could not and must not be thrown away without benefit. This is a very important indication for every Christian.

He must remember that he is not the master of what he has. He is only God's steward on earth over certain gifts of God entrusted to him for their management.

Chrysostom constantly develops this thought in all his homilies. He insists on the duty of dividing the surplus of one's abundance among the poor, "that nothing may be lost."

But the gathering of the remains had another purpose as well. It was a visible indication to the people and to the disciples of the miracle that had taken place.

For many this was a strengthening of faith. The unbelieving, however, were sons of perdition. Among them was Judas Iscariot, who himself received the loaves from the Savior's hands.

He himself carried one of the baskets in which the remains were placed.